Closed since October 16, 2010, the Braehead museum was located on the south bank of the River Clyde at Braehead, Clydebuilt explored the industrial development of Glasgow and the River Clyde from 1700 to the present day. Opened in September 1999, it told of what was built on the Clyde and how the River Clyde itself was 'built'.
The ground floor of the centre used a timeline consisting of a large model of the River Clyde containing 300 gallons of flowing water. The river went from a muddy stream, where in the 17th century you could wade across the Clyde at low tide, to the birthplace of ships great and small; through sail and steam and the great ocean liners, to today's warships and bulk carriers.
From the days of Glasgow's 'Tobacco Lords', Mr Glassford, told how Glasgow made its fortune from tobacco, rum and sugar from the colonies.
Glasgow's rise to the Industrial Revolution was shown by cotton, iron and steel trading, with a cotton printing press showing images of finished goods, and charting the markets for the city's products. A model cotton mill was situated on a tributary of the River Clyde, which also features displays on the earliest stages of the civil engineering methods used to deepen the River Clyde's channel to enable navigation upriver to Glasgow. An installation allows the visitor to see and hear at first hand the process of manufacturing iron and steel.
The visitor's journey through the museum included an Audio and Visual presentation that took them through the last 100 years of Clyde shipbuilding with a specially commissioned video running twice every hour bringing the Clydebuilt story up to date in an accessible way for all ages. Model docks indicated the scale and type of infrastructure required for the movement of cargo, whilst a mock crane provided a visual link to the second floor, which expanded on trade and cargo using a warehouse theme. A range of traded products fill this area and the visitor could make their fortune at the hands-on Cargo Game or try their hands at piloting a tanker into port.
A working triple expansion engine was used to tell the story of 'Powering World Trade' which gave an insight into the development of the marine steam engine and offered the visitor a chance to operate the engine using a ships' telegraph.
Read more about this topic: Scottish Maritime Museum, Braehead